My Name is Solo

Posted by Speakeasy News > Thursday 17 May 2018 > What's On


Star Wars fans face a two-year gap between 2017’s Star Wars: The Last Jedi and the still-untitled Episode IX. But five months after The Last Jedi, the next standalone Star Wars movie: Solo: A Star Wars Story had its premiere at the Cannes Film Festival before opening in France on May 23 and in the United States two days later.

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Alden Ehrenreich is Han Solo and Joonas Suotamo is Chewbacca.

Following up the success of Rogue One: A Star Wars Story (opened in December 2016, it has grossed more than $1 billion worldwide ), Disney planned a Han Solo movie as its second non-trilogy Star Wars feature.

What Is The Han Solo Movie About?

Solo: A Star Wars Story tells how Han Solo met Wookiee warrior Chewbacca, his co-pilot, and Lando Calrissian the eternally smooth smuggler who somehow became the Baron Administrator of Cloud City and a general for the Rebel Alliance. The film is also about how Solo got the famous Millennium Falcon and it depicts Han's early years in the criminal underworld and his brief stint at the Imperial Academy.

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Alden Ehrenreich as Han Solo, Donal Glover as Lando Calrissian and Phoebe Waller-Bridge as L3-37.

A “Galactic” Cast

Played by Harrison Ford in the original films, the role of the young Solo is reprised by Alden Ehrenreich (Hail Caesar, Beautiful Creatures).

Donald Glover aka rapper Childish Gambino is Lando Calrissian and Joonas Suotamo is Chewbacca.

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Qi'ra, Emilia Clarke.

In supporting roles, Woody Harrelson (True Detective, Three Billboards) has been cast in the film as criminal Tobias Beckett who serves as a mentor to the young Han Solo; Emilia Clarke, who is best known for her role as Daenerys Targaryen on Game of Thrones is portraying Qi’ra, Han Solo’s childhood friend; Thandie Newton (Westworld) plays the mysterious Val, a member of Beckett’s crew and Phoebe Waller-Bridge (Fleabag) plays the dynamic new droid L3-37 in a motion-capture performance.

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Thandie Newton, Woody Harrelson and Alden Ehrenreich.

Two-time Academy Award winner Ron Howard is behind the camera after the exit of original filmmakers Phil Lord and Christopher Miller a few months into production, citing creative differences.

An interesting Time period

J.J. Abrams, who is the keeper of all things Star Wars, has intimated that the movie takes place somewhere around 10 years prior to the events of Star Wars: A New Hope, in the years leading up to Solo's encounter with Luke Skywalker and Obi-Wan Kenobi in a Mos Eisley cantina.

This time period is interesting because the action takes place between the end of the prequel trilogy and the beginning of the original trilogy. The Empire exists, and as a decent force, but not nearly at the level of power that it has Star Wars: A New Hope. While many have likely been thinking that Solo: A Star Wars Story will try to recapture the look and feel of the original trilogy, in the same way that Rogue One: A Star Wars Story felt like its own thing, the fact is that the Han Solo movie could look unlike anything we've seen in Star Wars before. Separate from both trilogies in equal measure.

But the revelation that has garnered the most interest is that we’ll also discover how he got his name because Han Solo was originally called something else. Surprise surprise!

4 Clips from the Movie (2018)

 

 



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